Akwaaba!!

Akwaaba! That means "you are welcome" in Twi and I have certainly been welcomed to Ghana by many wonderful people since my arrival. I landed in Accra and stayed at the International Student Hostel on the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital campus. Last week, I moved to Apam, which is where I'll stay for the remainder of my trip, except for the occasional weekend trip to Accra of course! Apam is a smaller town on the coast with a population of approximately 26,000 people. Since I'll be doing research at the Apam Catholic Hospital, I'm staying in one of the guest houses on the hospital compound.

The house I'm living in for the summer

Our house has air conditioning and two large water tanks in addition to the regular water supply so I've been far more comfortable than anticipated! I've gotten to know many of the people working at the hospital and am making great headway on the research project. I've finished observations and field notes and plan to begin interviews next week! The observations have been quite helpful because it's really allowed the staff and patients to get accustomed to my presence while allowing me to get my bearings also. I've also observed many births, which has been very exciting, nerve-wracking, and honestly a little scary! 

The front of the Apam Catholic Hospital

So thus far, I'm having a very wonderful experience in Ghana! I'll be updating shortly with more about traveling around Accra and my trip to Cape Coast slave castle and Kakum National Park! 


Mehunu wo akyire!


~J

Takeoff!

Hey everyone! Today is the day! I'll be flying out of Des Moines later this afternoon, find myself in Ghana by Wednesday, and will be there until the end of July. I'll then be traveling to Nigeria to visit some family before I return to the U.S. on August 22nd! 


A little background on my summer plans and how they came about- as most of you know, I'm an MPH (Masters in Public Health) student at the University of Michigan in the Health Behavior Health Education department and all students in my department are required to complete a summer internship between our first and second year. I've always had an interest in international public health and therefore wanted to complete an international internship. I applied to MHIRT (Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training) program in the fall semester and was awarded the opportunity to complete research in Ghana this summer. MHIRT was founded by NIH (National Institutes of Health) for minority students to learn research methodology in relation to health inequities for future application in domestic or international contexts. There will be several other UM students, both graduate and undergraduate in Ghana working on various projects this summer as part of the MHIRT program.


Now on to the research! I've been working with an amazing mentor at UM to develop our research topic that will be looking at the relationship between patients and midwives in labor and delivery settings in rural and urban Ghana. In the rural context, I will be working in the village of Apam, a fishing community approximately 40 miles outside of Accra and for the urban component, directly in Accra. Much of the published literature regarding women's delivery choices in Ghana has touched upon the issue of maltreatment of patients in the discussions, however no empirical research has been done to really study it. Specifically, I'll be working with my Ghanaian collaborators to interview women who have already given birth and midwives to find out about the childbirth experience in Ghana including any maltreatment issues they've encountered. This is just an initial assessment to really understand the attitudes and cultural context of patient and midwife interactions using interviews and field notes before developing a full fledged study. 

I'm very excited to conduct field interviews and speak with both groups to hear their perspectives! Who knows- I may stumble upon a really interesting sub-topic and find myself drawn in a completely different direction! I've always had an interest in maternal and child health so this is an amazing opportunity that I'm very grateful to have. I'll be sure to keep you all updated on my progress and load plenty of pictures. The blog will be focused more on my experiences and adventures than the research but will throw in some posts about that occasionally. Please comment and ask questions as the summer continues!


As they say in Twi, "mehunu wo akyire!"-see you later!


~J